Roll Call! House Passes $15 Minimum Wage (77-69), 2018

PASSED
in the State House of Representatives
on May 8, 2018, by a vote of77-69

.Purpose: To raise Vermont’s state minimum wage to $15/hour. .

Analysis:Those voting YES support raising Vermont’s minimum wage from $10.50/hour plus increases in line with inflation to $15 an hour by the year 2024. This, they believe, will benefit low income Vermonters and help to solve “income inequality.”.
Those voting NO believe that such a large and rapid increase in the cost of labor will harm Vermont businesses, the overall economy, and the workers the bill was meant to help due to cutbacks in hours, lost benefits, or lost jobs as employers struggle to maintain budgets..
The non-partisan Vermont Joint Fiscal Office testified that the $15 minimum wage would result in overall lower economic growth of 0.3% for the state, and would result in long term “disemployment” rate of 2250 jobs per year. This disemployment would disproportionately impact of minimum wage workers..
Advocates for the poor also testified that artificially increasing wages to this extent would disqualify may wage earners from collecting many state and federal benefits, particularly childcare benefits, resulting in a net decline in total household resources..
Seniors living on a fixed income and poor Vermonters who do not earn W2 income (a majority of them) will also be harmed as they will have to pay inevitably higher prices for goods and services, while their own incomes would be unaffected by the minimum wage increase. .

As Recorded in the House Journal, Tuesday, May 8, 2018:“Shall the House propose to the Senate to amend the bill as recommended by the Committee on General, Housing, and Military Affairs?. Yeas, 77. Nays, 69.” (Read the Journal, p. 1763-1783.)

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